[joonix]

Lack of enrollment in IT and entrepreneurship is a symptom of the culture, really. You've got tall poppy syndrome combined with protectionism that makes shooting for the easy low-risk stuff desirable... trades pay insanely well due to strong unions and tight immigration policy, for example.

[josephagoss]

IT is not a admirable career here at all, Medicine, Law and Engineering are the good careers that pay well and are generally respected, but IT is looked down upon big time over here. Its a shame really, but to most IT is tech support (I know many computer science grads who are on minimium wage tech support)

[chucknthem]

There's a huge difference between IT and software engineering, and using IT as the umbrella term is really doing us a disservice.

[anip]

I hate the use of the term IT, and won't work again for the company that doesn't have an Engineering department, but only an IT department.

[taligent]

> but to most IT is tech support

I don't know where you get this ridiculous idea from. Most IT in Australia is actually in software engineering and testing for banks, media, mining etc. Most of the tech support I am aware of is slowly being outsourced.

[ghiculescu]

I think he means the public perspective of "IT" is tech support, which doesn't make it look very exciting in the eyes of prospective students.

[josephagoss]

I was a bit unclear, but this is what I meant.

IT is not well regarded, you cannot argue otherwise, I live here and no one things highly of IT unless your pulling in a large salary, and Most IT grads I know hate coding and work in IT support (on the phones fixing modem settings)

How depressing it is. (I study engineering and computer science, because I felt computer science is dumbed down in the Universities here too and want to graduate with a mathematics based degree (Electrical Eng) Funny enough, computer science here is mathematically weak and most people in my computer science class can't do basic calculus)- no wonder they are getting IT jobs, they can't do anything else with their weak pass average computer science degree that was all about playing computer games.

[joonix]

It's a feedback loop. Lack of startups and support => Lack of successful, prestigious software companies => Geeks have not earned public admiration the way they have in the US via Facebook, Google, etc etc.

It then applies to IT as well.

[novocaine7]

why would you focus on what's happening to the bottom tier students?

what do you think is happening to the distinction and high distinction students?

all the interesting from uni (unsw) i know either have good jobs or are doing really interesting research.

and software engineering is plenty well respected - people usually know it means you build apps and generally assume you're pretty smart. cheer up mate.

[te_chris]

Are you saying trades paying well is a bad thing? I'd argue that's a great thing for entrepreneurs who are willing to take risks because then you have strong, cash-rich people who can stimulate demand in the economy.

[bwb]

I think its gotten a bit overboard on pay. There is nothing wrong with that, but it will reduce innovation and risk taking. Especially with such a high minimum wage, people cost is so high that it's reducing innovation/entrepreneurship. I think this is their style but its gone too far in the last 5 years.

The USA is a bit overboard on under paying. Minimum wage needs to go up + tied to cpi + fix health care to find a happier medium and build out a strong middle class. This might be our personal style though, but I think its gotten out of hand. I don't want to be Australia.

I think Australia has gone a bit far and the USA not far enough. Somewhere in between is a sweet zone.